Saturday, October 20, 2012

"The only thing wrong with immortality is that it tends to go on forever." - Herb Caen

***

Food For Thought: Xiao Long Bao and Authenticity in Food - "Unlike western dumplings, Asian dumplings unanimously have fillings. However, in China, no single, all encompassing term for the concept exists. To give you a sense of the confusion, it's like lumping omelets and meringue cookies into a single, undifferentiated category simply because they are both made with beaten eggs... authenticity in food remains reductionist and misleading, at its worst favoring a crystallized illusion. It's a culinary imperialism that treats restaurants like reservations, where "ethnic" people cook food in ways that have not changed since time immemorial—and always will... "what passes for Sichuan cuisine today only took shape relatively recently, probably no more then 250 years ago"... when digging into that ma po do fu, you aren't thinking about how those chilies, which give the dish its vital kick, were originally brought over from the New World by European merchants. They have become synonymous with Sichuanese cuisine to the point of being one of its defining elements—talk about evolution through contact with new people!"

Couples report gender differences in relationship, sexual satisfaction over time - "For men, relationship happiness was more likely if the man reported being in good health and if it was important to him that his partner experienced orgasm. Surprisingly, frequent kissing or cuddling also predicted happiness in the relationship for men, but not for women. Both men and women reported more happiness the longer they had been together, and if they themselves scored higher on several sexual functioning questionnaires. Across all five nationalities, for both men and women, the Japanese were significantly happier with their relationships than Americans, and Brazilians and Spanish reported less relationship happiness than Americans. Men and women both were likely to report sexual satisfaction if they also reported frequent kissing and cuddling, sexual caressing by the partner, higher sexual functioning, and if they had sex more frequently. On the other hand, for men, having had more sex partners in their lifetime was a predictor of less sexual satisfaction"

UK: Woman creates erotic website as antidote to porn - "Her website features couples and individuals engaging in real-life sexual activities with the kind of genuine passion and intimacy missing from most internet porn... Invited members pay $5 per video chosen from the menu, and contributors who star in their own erotic show submit videos for the site. Gallop says she has no shortage of quality contributors. "MakeLoveNotPorn.tv" is legal and for over-18s only. But Gallop wants to create gift vouchers that can be bought for younger teenagers. "They are accessing hardcore porn online anyway, whether we like it or not, and what they see on my website is a much more healthy form of sex education," she said."

How to Take a Bicycle Rickshaw or 'Cyclo' in Hanoi, Vietnam - "In Hanoi, as in other areas of Vietnam, unfortunately, a lot of tradespeople try to take more money from you than was originally agreed upon. In stores, shopkeepers will try to keep your change, or dole it out in small quantities until you ask for "All of it" and cyclo riders are no different. So, if at all possible, make sure you only pay the rider with the exact money you agreed upon. That way, you won't have to argue with him to get your change back."I'm not the only one they cheat

Friends You Can Count On - NYTimes.com - "despite all your efforts, you probably have fewer friends than most of your friends have. But don’t despair — the same is true for almost all of us. Our friends are typically more popular than we are"

How to Negotiate like an Indian -- 7 Rules - "Rule #1 – The true price of any item is what you pay — There are no suggested retail prices in India. Nothing is labeled, so it pays to talk with several vendors before making a significant purchase.
Rule # 2 – Try for 70% off — Don’t accept less than 30%
Rule # 3 – Make them show lots of merchandise...
Rule # 4 – Offer on one item at a time – If you plan to buy a couple things DON’T let on at the outset. Act like you intend to buy only one item, if that much. Get the seller to give you prices on each item; play one item off another to show you are looking for the lower price point.
Rule # 5 – Wait for the pad of paper — Every Indian sales person has a pad of paper and a pencil that they pull out when the bargaining gets a bit more serious. Though they write down the price for an item, this is only the starting point – remember rule #2.
Rule # 6 – Say “TOO HIGH”, a lot – Don’t even start negotiating until the salesman has scratched through the initial price and lowered it at least twice. I found that simply staring in silence at the pad of paper for a long time would result in the vendor cutting the price.
Rule # 7 – Imply a bundled purchase — OK, now that the price has been cut 25-30%, ask the salesman what deal he would give you if you buy two items. Expect 5% off. Ask for three items; get another 5%. Then add a very expensive 4th item — one which you do not intend to buy. This will excite the vendor and he will do a bunch of calculations which you will be unable to follow. The price will come down for the expensive item as well as for the other items you intend to buy. Lock those prices and drop the expensive item...
One final point – no matter what price you pay — if the sales guy is smiling when you leave — guess who won…
Is it a stereotype that Indians are good at negotiating? Sure. Is it accurate? Just neglect to prepare next time you match wits against an Indian entrepreneur and you tell me"In particular, Rule 7 sounds like swindling. And the fact that they always offer ridiculous prices in the first place indicates that they are trying to swindle you too. Maybe I shouldn't go to IndiaKeywords negotiating with indians, negotiating in india

Why I Published Those Cartoons - "Jyllands-Posten would not publish pornographic images or graphic details of dead bodies; swear words rarely make it into our pages... The cartoonists treated Islam the same way they treat Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and other religions. And by treating Muslims in Denmark as equals they made a point: We are integrating you into the Danish tradition of satire because you are part of our society, not strangers. The cartoons are including, rather than excluding, Muslims. The cartoons do not in any way demonize or stereotype Muslims. In fact, they differ from one another both in the way they depict the prophet and in whom they target. One cartoon makes fun of Jyllands-Posten, portraying its cultural editors as a bunch of reactionary provocateurs. Another suggests that the children's writer who could not find an illustrator for his book went public just to get cheap publicity. A third puts the head of the anti-immigration Danish People's Party in a lineup, as if she is a suspected criminal... what does respect mean? When I visit a mosque, I show my respect by taking off my shoes. I follow the customs, just as I do in a church, synagogue or other holy place. But if a believer demands that I, as a nonbeliever, observe his taboos in the public domain, he is not asking for my respect, but for my submission. And that is incompatible with a secular democracy... As a former correspondent in the Soviet Union, I am sensitive about calls for censorship on the grounds of insult. This is a popular trick of totalitarian movements: Label any critique or call for debate as an insult and punish the offenders. That is what happened to human rights activists and writers such as Andrei Sakharov, Vladimir Bukovsky, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Natan Sharansky, Boris Pasternak... The lesson from the Cold War is: If you give in to totalitarian impulses once, new demands follow. The West prevailed in the Cold War because we stood by our fundamental values and did not appease totalitarian tyrants... We have had no anti-Muslim riots, no Muslims fleeing the country and no Muslims committing violence. The radical imams who misinformed their counterparts in the Middle East about the situation for Muslims in Denmark have been marginalized. They no longer speak for the Muslim community in Denmark because moderate Muslims have had the courage to speak out against them... the integration of Muslims into European societies has been sped up by 300 years due to the cartoons; perhaps we do not need to fight the battle for the Enlightenment all over again in Europe. The narrative in the Middle East is more complex, but that has very little to do with the cartoons"

Iraq and the Arabs' Future - NYTimes.com - "A culture that looks squarely at its own troubles should think aloud about the rage that is summoned on behalf of the Palestinians while the pain of the Kurds, or the Berbers in North Africa, or the Christians in the southern Sudan, is passed over in silence. This righteous sense of Arab victimhood -- which overlooks what Arab rulers do to others while lamenting its own condition -- emanates from a political tradition of belligerent self-pity. The push should be for an Arab world that acknowledges its own economic and political retrogression and begins to find a way out of those crippling sectarian atavisms"

Romance, the Ultimate Souvenir --Modern Love - NYTimes.com - "I’ve always fallen in love on vacation. Who hasn’t? There’s a distinctive intensity to vacation romances. The object of our affection rises from the crowd like fireworks, simultaneously illuminating the unfamiliar landscape of our travels and obliterating its interest... The idea prospers that vacation flings are an escape from our real selves. But maybe what’s really happening is that they draw out selves that are real but suppressed... The ultimate truism in our understanding of vacation romance is that it’s exciting because we don’t see our new lover’s flaws. Again, I think the opposite is the truth: on vacation we stop judging and allow ourselves to relish another person’s quirky imperfections... On vacation, we fall in love less by logic than by instinct. The question then becomes: Should we be trying to love in regular life more like we love when we travel? Should we be dating strippers and oyster-bar waiters? Probably more often than we do, but not all the time"

Study: Men Are More Attracted to Women with High Salaries - "men may be readier to cede their role as breadwinner than they are given credit for. Last year, Stanford University economist Ran Abramitzky, working with two European colleagues, published a fascinating study that suggests exactly this. Looking at demographic records for the French population after World War I, they found that men in regions that had suffered higher mortality rates (and were therefore short on men) were more able to “marry up.” Given the opportunity to marry into a life with more resources and prospects, the men hastened to do so. To Abramitzky, the surprise was “how flexible this marriage market was” and how quickly men were able to adapt to the changing demographics"

JS: It's a clear issue here: does a just society kill people who are disabled? I think a just society does not. All abortion is defeatist and negative, but killing a child because it is less than perfect seems to me, utterly incompatible with true justice and civilization.

KS: Jack, if you're against abortion, can I strongly recommend you don't have one.

WS: Alright, thank you very much, Kate.

[Ed: He knows what's coming!]

JS: I'm sorry, I just don't understand what you're saying.

KS: As a man, really, does your opinion matter on this? Why get involved in telling women what to do with their bodies? Isn't that in itself quite offensive, Jack?

JS: Well, I'm a human being and I'm wanting to protect my fellow human beings
from being exploited and killed.

KS: Well, allow them the right to choose what happens to their own bodies, then. And you choose what happens to your body.

JS: Who gave them that right? Who gave them that right?

KS: Do you really believe people don't have have the right to decide what happens to their own bodies? I mean, if so I think you are a despicable human being, Jack.

WC: Now, come on Kate. We can't allow this kind of language, honestly. We're having a moral conversation about this. You're really not advancing your own argument here.

KS: What, to call him a despicable human being?

WS: No, you can't do that.

KS: But he says that I don't have the right to decide what happens to my body.

WS: There is an important level of civil debate that we have to do justice to here.

KS: I think I'm being very calm here.

WS: No, that's very uncivil, that's very uncivil. You can make a strong moral argument. You can make a strong moral argument, but don't attack him personally.

KS: Here's what I'm saying. I'm talking to somebody who believes that I don't have the right to choose what happens to my body. To me, that is someone who opposes basic fundamental human rights. I don't know how else to express that.

KS: What? Ser- what a strange question. Why do I have the right to decide what happens to my body.

JS: No, not why. Where did it come from? Who gave you that right?

KS: What do you mean where does it come from? It comes from the fact that it's my body.

JS: You're claiming the right. Who gave it to you? Show me the piece of paper on which that right is written.

KS: You believe I don't have the right to decide what happens to my own body? Okay, well that's your opinion and you're welcome to it. That's your opinion. What gives me the right is that my womb and my body is attached to me.

JS: Why does that give you the right to kill a child in the womb?

KS: It gives me the right to decide what happens to my body, because it's my body. Do I have the right to take one of your kidneys? Of course not. Do I have that right? Now, I could save someone's life with one of your kidneys. Do I have the right to come and steal it? No I don't.

JS: Sorry, would you kindly focus on my question?

KS: This is my question.

JS: No, I'm asking you the question.

KS: I could save someone's life by taking one of your kidneys. No, I don't have to, it's a meaningless question, who gave me the right? I have the right.

JS: It's a very important question.

WS: It's a question we will return to because we often debate the foundations of rights here, whether it's in the Bible, religious tradition or human rights culture. But we can't resolve it at this point, and I think I better pull you two apart at this point.

Besides the ad hominem ("despicable human being"), the other classic feminist fallacies are plainly in evidence:

- "if you're against abortion, can I strongly recommend you don't have one" (the same goes for sexist jokes)
- "As a man, really, does your opinion matter on this?" (silencing tactics, rather than addressing his point - not that she would listen to pro-life women, anyway)
- "the right to decide what happens to my body, because it's my body" (a lack of appreciation of subtlety: a better ways of rebutting her would've been pointing out that you have reduced rights to decide what happens to your body when it impacts others. For example if you have an infectious disease like SARS, you don't have a right to refuse treatment and quarantine)
- Among many examples, "he says that I don't have the right to decide what happens to my body" (misinterpreting [deliberately?] the other side's point)

Thursday, October 18, 2012

"I also think there are prices too high to pay to save the United States. Conscription is one of them. Conscription is slavery, and I don't think that any people or nation has a right to save itself at the price of slavery for anyone, no matter what name it is called. We have had the draft for twenty years now; I think this is shameful. If a country can't save itself through the volunteer service of its own free people, then I say : Let the damned thing go down the drain!" - Robert A. Heinlein, Guest of Honor Speech at the 29th World Science Fiction Convention, Seattle, WA (1961)

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

"I find righteous denunciations of the present state of the language no less dismaying than the present state of the language" - Lionel Trilling

***

Which is the world's biggest employer? - "The National Health Service (NHS) in England is at the centre of a big political row about its reform. It's often said to be the third biggest employer in the world, after the Chinese army and Indian Railways. But is that really true?"

Stanford Magazine - The Menace Within - July/August 2011 - "I didn't think it was ever meant to go the full two weeks. I think Zimbardo wanted to create a dramatic crescendo, and then end it as quickly as possible. I felt that throughout the experiment, he knew what he wanted and then tried to shape the experiment—by how it was constructed, and how it played out—to fit the conclusion that he had already worked out. He wanted to be able to say that college students, people from middle-class backgrounds—people will turn on each other just because they're given a role and given power."

Cain Quotes ‘Pokémon’ Movie in Final Speech - "When ending his speech Saturday, Cain once again did it his way: even with acknowledging the source for his quote, he still proudly recited it. As with so much of his campaign, it was cringe-worthy, kind of crazy, and unintentionally humorous. But it was unmistakably Herman Cain."

On the Freedom to Offend an Imaginary God : Sam Harris - "Either our government is unwilling to address the problem at hand, or the problem is so vast and terrifying that we have decided to placate the barbarians at the gate. The contagion of moral cowardice followed its usual course, wherein liberal journalists and pundits began to reconsider our most basic freedoms in light of the sadomasochistic fury known as “religious sensitivity” among Muslims. Contributors to The New York Times and NPR spoke of the need to find a balance between free speech and freedom of religion—as though the latter could possibly be infringed by a YouTube video. As predictable as Muslim bullying has become, the moral confusion of secular liberals appears to be part of the same clockwork... Some percentage of the world’s Muslims—Five percent? Fifteen? Fifty? It’s not yet clear—is demanding that all non-Muslims conform to the strictures of Islamic law... Religion only works as a pretext for political violence because many millions of people actually believe what they say they believe: that imaginary crimes like blasphemy and apostasy are killing offenses... The freedom to think out loud on certain topics, without fear of being hounded into hiding or killed, has already been lost. And the only forces on earth that can recover it are strong, secular governments that will face down charges of blasphemy with scorn"

What signal is Marissa Mayer giving to Yahoo employees? - "Mayer's assurance that having a child will require so little adjustment in her work schedule has led many women to worry that she is naive about the physical and emotional price she will pay for taking so little time to recuperate and bond with her new baby. Others express concern that her child will suffer for her decision... very short maternity leaves do increase the risk of insecure attachment between mother and child... But Mayer's insistence that she will get back to work so quickly sets a bad precedent for Yahoo's lower-level employees, mothers and fathers, who do not have the job flexibility and cannot afford the extensive social support and backup systems that Mayer and her husband will be able to construct."Given that her biggest critics were other women, this speaks volumes about the usual claims by feminists about what's holding women back

David Briggs: Muslim-Majority Nations More Likely to Deny Religious Freedom - "Violent religious persecution is present in every country with a Muslim majority with a population of more than 2 million... two-thirds of movements seeking the adoption of religious law were in Muslim-majority nations. Only 4 percent of such movements were in Christian-majority nations...One irony for Muslim-majority nations, many of whom defend legal restrictions under the premise of protecting the faith, is that the harshest religious persecution is often directed at other Muslims, such as the Ahmadiyya sect in Pakistan and Indonesia, Grim and Finke note. Their study also found governments in more than seven in 10 Muslim-majority countries harass Muslims, while Muslims are harassed in only three of 10 Christian-majority nations."Islamophobia!; the biggest oppressors of Muslims... are other Muslims

Channel 4 cancels Islam documentary screening after presenter threatened - "The investigation into the origins of the religion claimed that there is little written contemporary evidence about the prophet Mohammed. It examined claims that rather than Islam's doctrine emerging fully-formed in a single text, the religion instead developed gradually over many years with the expansion of Arabic empires. Holland, the writer of best-sellers Rubicon and Persian Fire, said that Islam is "a legitimate subject of historical inquiry". The Islamic Education and Research Academy (IERA) accused him of making "baseless assumptions" and engaging in "selective scholarship". Iranian state media suggested the broadcast was an "insult" to Islam. One message sent to Holland read: "You might be a target in the streets. You may recruit some bodyguards, for your own safety.""

Black Actors Revisit Roles Originally Played By Whites - "Denzel Washington stepped into Frank Sinatra’s shoes with 2004’s The Manchurian Candidate, and even Will Smith took a stab at it with the reboot of I Am Legend (inspired by the 1971 Charlton Heston starrer, The Omega Man)... [in] 2008 when we saw TV veteran Debbie Allen direct her Tony award-winning big sister, fellow small screen legend Phylicia Rashad, in the role of Big Mama in the first all-black production of Tennessee Williams’ classic play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof... Just last month, another one of Williams’ plays, A Streetcar Named Desire, added some color to the Broadway stage. Soul Food alum Nicole Ari Parker stepped into the role of Blanche, previously played by Vivien Leigh. She joined Blair Underwood as Stanley (formerly portrayed by Marlon Brando), with Broadway newcomer Wood Harris as Mitch and Tony nominee Daphne Rubin-Vega (Rent) as Underwood’s leading lady, Stella... the once colorless drama Steel Magnolias was getting an all-black remake"Also, Samuel L Jackson played Nick Fury. Yet when white actors play characters that were originally non-white, this is called "whitewashing", and when black actors do whiteface this is alright

David McAlmont: Black Actor White Script? - "[He argues] it is not an 'all black' production but one set in an unspecified East Africa country decades ago... productions like this never have white cast members. Why, when Europeans have been in Africa for hundreds of years? I insist that it's tantamount to positive discrimination in the theatre - how about an all black Othello with a white moor for a change?... isn't it all a bit backward bandying words like black and white around? I contact another friend, actor and filmmaker Giles Terera, to see what he thinks. I ask if these notions are anything more than a frustrating bore to him. He confirms "I don't want to be considered a black actor- I get very bored with it!""

R-word | Spread the Word to End the Word - "The R-word is the word 'retard(ed)'. Why does it hurt? The R-word hurts because it is exclusive. It’s offensive. It’s derogatory. The R-word is hate speech... When they were originally introduced, the terms “mental retardation” or “mentally retarded” were medical terms with a specifically clinical connotation; however, the pejorative forms, “retard” and “retarded” have been used widely in today’s society to degrade and insult people with intellectual disabilities. Additionally, when “retard” and “retarded” are used as synonyms for “dumb” or “stupid” by people without disabilities, it only reinforces painful stereotypes of people with intellectual disabilities being less valued members of humanity... Why "intellectual disability" is replacing "mental retardation": The R-word, “retard,” is slang for the term mental retardation. Mental retardation was what doctors, psychologists, and other professionals used to describe people with significant intellectual impairment. Today the r-word has become a common word used by society as an insult for someone or something stupid"Pledge to stop using "retarded". In a few years you'll pledge not to use "intellectually disabled"
Friend: "Not allowed to say 'disabled', it's now 'differently abled'... this is pointless." (i.e. the site is already outdated and offensive)

Tutor who sexually assaulted 7 boys blames ghost - "ustice Woo said the tutor's explanation about the ghost did not make him any less culpable. Even assuming the story was true, he said, the question was whether he could have resisted the instructions. The judge noted that the tutor also told psychiatrists the ghost had instructed him to do other things such as touch girls' buttocks and throw stones at people, but he managed to restrain himself. "Furthermore, there was no suggestion that the ghost told you to take photos and video of your depraved conduct, but you did," said Justice Woo"

How Apple’s Obsession with Google Is Hurting Apple | Cult of Mac - "Every once in a while, a company becomes so obsessed with a competitor that it loses focus on its own customers. They start designing and positioning their products more to hurt rivals than thrill users. And I fear that now it’s happening to Apple. Again. Everybody knows about Apple’s near-death experience in the 90s. But few appreciate why it happened. From 1985 to 1997, Apple went in a series of bizarre product directions. Yes, Apple made some cool stuff back then. But they also made a lot of weird moves that would be inconceivable by the standards of today’s Apple... they become obsessed with Microsoft, and were throwing all kinds of spaghetti against the wall to see what would stick"

Fatherhood by Conscription: Nonconsensual Insemination and the Duty of Child Support by Michael Higdon - "Nathaniel was not only a new father, but was also a victim of statutory rape. Nonetheless, in a subsequent action for child support, the court held that Nathaniel was liable for the support of the child who was born as a result of his rape. According to the court, "Victims have rights. Here, the victim also has responsibilities"... the strict liability approach poses a grave injustice not only to the men who are pressed into the obligations of fatherhood but also to society, which has an interest in protecting all citizens from sexual assault"

Monday, October 15, 2012

"Here's the thing about inauthentic people: inauthentic people are obsessed with authenticity." - Jonathan Franzen

***

MFTTW: koreans in general are all cock
i conclude that their life is really played out exactly like it is in
korean drama shows

the point is if you're korean your life is filled with unnecessary and
stupid self-manufactured drama

normal girls would understand if a guy is buying them dinner that
maybe they are interested in them
and normal girls would also understand that if they go on holiday with
a single guy and they are single then the guy might construe it as her
having romantic interest in him and she might be propositioned
and not like
OH I DIN KNOW HE IS INTERESTED
pls lor
you can't have grown up in a modern society and be that guileless

Someone: should have learned from the example of LKY - being a
lawyer doesn't make you a better person or even a smarter person

MFTTW: what's hysteria

ha I thought it must be a film about women
and sure enough

Someone: [he] also told me his sis is much prettier than me
no woinder we broke up
HAHAHHAHHA

Me: -_-
cannot make such comments meh

Someone: he said no one is more beautiful than my sister to me
ya good for you

Me: yeah. moral of the story: you need to lie to women

Someone: hurhurhur

nothing wrong with putting ur sis first
just that i want someone who puts me first

Me: -_-
I thought family was the most impt

Me: "The female commuter felt someone fondling the area around her back."
sexy back

MFTTW: cock lah

Me: poor guy

MFTTW: haha why you victim blaming

Me: hello
who gropes the back
it's a he said she said
and the guy gets screwed

MFTTW: that one i think cannot prove lah
who gropes your back

Me: cannot prove = man is dead
come on men get charged for showing their middle fingers to women

MFTTW: can hire a good lawyer
haha sg sucks

Me: good lawyer cant save you

MFTTW: now i know how to exact vendetta against guys who annoy me
accuse them of molest
or sexual harassment

Temptation Chris: do most ppl plan their life by vacation?
cause my friend asks me things like
so whens ur next vacation

Me: I suspect it's one of the defining milestones of a yuppie's life
also food and travel are easy conversation topics
when people do not want to discuss the misery of the human condition

Sunday, October 14, 2012

"The wages of sin are death, but by the time taxes are taken out, it's just sort of a tired feeling." - Paula Poundstone

***

WhatTheFont! « MyFonts - "Seen a font in use and want to know what it is? Submit an image to WhatTheFont to find the closest matches in our database"

Eunuchs reveal clues to why women live longer than men - "They lived up to 19 years longer than uncastrated men from the same social class and even outlived members of the royal family. The researchers believe the findings show male hormones shorten life expectancy... "Castrato versus non-castrato singers are probably a better comparison, and showed no difference in lifespan. Non-castrato lived an average 65 years and both groups lived fairly cosseted lives""

Teachers cheered by call to be firm with pushy parents - "My teachers spend a lot of extra time on pupils, even on Saturdays. But some parents don't want their child to spend time on a Saturday coming to school for extra classes. So they tell the teacher not to come back to teach the rest of the class. They do not want their child's classmates to benefit"

Why Fathers Really Matter - NYTimes.com - "Twentieth-century Darwinian genetics dismissed Lamarckism as laughable, but because of epigenetics, Lamarckism is staging a comeback... when boys ate badly during the years right before puberty, between the ages of 9 and 12, their sons, as adults, had lower than normal rates of heart disease. When boys ate all too well during that period, their grandsons had higher rates of diabetes.

Modern Love – You May Call It Cheating, but We Don’t - NYTimes.com - "In an anthology edited by Susie Bright, who blogs about sex, one woman said: “It surprises me to no end that the sexual fetish of cuckoldry, once thought of as a disability, could be shared by so many people. The cuckolding fetish has an element of surprise, along with a bittersweet emotional masochism. Another key to the fetish, from the perspective of the cuckold, is that of eroticizing as a defense mechanism”... I slept my way around Europe as a teenager, and am sometimes wistful for the ability to leave situations the second they became complicated. To me, countries and boyfriends were similar. You visited, enjoyed the view until you didn’t anymore and then left... attraction to other people isn’t necessarily a sign your marriage is bankrupt. In the course of being together forever, especially if you’re out in the world meeting new people, it happens. One of the challenges in a marriage, in addition to deciding whose job it is to do the dishes and how to balance the budget, is to figure out how to deal with lust or love for other people... “Infidelity doesn’t kill a relationship,” a therapist told me. “Indifference does.” Of course, infidelity can lead to indifference, because it distracts you from your partner"

Comparing The Costs Of Human Vs. Animal Health Care - "I received fantastic care during my surgery and brief stay at the hospital. I guarantee that Rover got just as good a quality of care as I did. I think service and compassion were a wash in this comparison. I know for a fact that many pet owners think veterinarians charge too much. I hear that all the time. Take a look at this side-by-side fee comparison. The same surgery, one-tenth the cost."

Blogging and identity: To name or not to name? - "I have a friend who told me that at two different jobs, his bosses requested him to leave after they found out he was a political activist, even though they were satisfied with his work and he had done nothing illegal"

Rosenhan experiment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - "Rosenhan's study was done in two parts. The first part involved the use of healthy associates or "pseudopatients" (three women and five men) who briefly simulated auditory hallucinations in an attempt to gain admission to 12 different psychiatric hospitals in five different states in various locations in the United States. All were admitted and diagnosed with psychiatric disorders. After admission, the pseudopatients acted normally and told staff that they felt fine and had not experienced any more hallucinations. All were forced to admit to having a mental illness and agree to take antipsychotic drugs as a condition of their release. The average time that the clients spent in the hospital was 19 days. All but one were diagnosed with schizophrenia "in remission" before their release. The second part of his study involved an offended hospital challenging Rosenhan to send pseudopatients to its facility, whom its staff would then detect. Rosenhan agreed and in the following weeks out of 193 new patients the staff identified 41 as potential pseudopatients, with 19 of these receiving suspicion from at least 1 psychiatrist and 1 other staff member. In fact Rosenhan had sent no-one to the hospital. The study concluded, "It is clear that we cannot distinguish the sane from the insane in psychiatric hospitals"... In 2008, the BBC's Horizon science program performed a somewhat related experiment over two episodes entitled "How Mad Are You?". The experiment involved ten subjects, five living with previously-diagnosed mental health conditions, and five with no such diagnosis. They were observed by three experts in mental health diagnoses and their challenge was to identify the five with mental health problems. The experts correctly diagnosed two of the ten patients, misdiagnosed one patient, and incorrectly identified two healthy patients as having mental health problems"

Is There Really an Epidemic of Depression? - "since 1980 psychiatry and the other mental health professions have used a definition of depression that conflates genuine depressive disorder with intense, but normal, states of sadness... Mental health advocates, for instance, liked the fact that it produced high estimates of the amount of depressive mental disorder so that it seemed as if depression was a “public health problem” of massive proportions. Clinicians could get reimbursed for conditions that might actually be non-medical problems. Perhaps most important, pharmaceutical companies found that they could portray people who suffered from widespread psychosocial problems in their advertisements while at the same time marketing their products as treatments for depressive mental disorders. And, of course, many individuals find it more acceptable to frame their problems as the result of a mental disorder and to take psychotropic drugs to attempt to relieve their distress than to see their suffering as the result of psychosocial problems... the medicalization of sadness has a number of costs. One is that calling a condition a “depressive disorder” prejudges the nature of that condition and suggests that medication is the most appropriate response to it... defining sadness as depression can tend to close off non-medical interventions including various sorts of social support, psychotherapies, changes in life circumstances or turning the sufferer’s attention to confronting their psychosocial situation—and can undermine resolve to address social problems that make people miserable by reframing that misery as a widespread individual medical disorder... it misleads our thinking in every area, from policy and research to clinical intervention and our own personal understandings"

Ask Me About Being A Birthday Party Princess - "I have a deep voice. Like, a deep voice for a woman. Some people tell me it's sexy or sophisticated, but these people are my friends so I'd hardly expect them to tell me I sound like a dude. But it's not a princess voice, that's for sure. Go back and watch Disney movies, especially Snow White, and take in the ear-splitting high notes they hit in song. Sleeping Beauty has one of the deepest singing voices of the princesses, and she's still super femmy sounding. My singing range is right there with Megara from Hercules. Middle of the scale, maybe a few high notes if I practice. So I practice, a LOT. At home, in the shower and with a special CD on my way to every party. My boss told me once that she was initially worried at our first interview when I started talking, because she thought I couldn't do the ear-splitting "princess voice". But I switched it on before the first party and she was very relieved. It's not hard for me to adopt a high-pitched falsetto talking voice, without sounding too fake or strained. It's just the singing that's hard for me, so I try to choose songs where I can exploit the lower tones, but still hit enough high notes for it to be "princessy". My boss has very strict guidelines for our behavior. We must smile ALWAYS, every minute of the party (hard to do until you get the hang of it), we must be always entertaining, we must act as if we know the birthday girl (we're told her name and age before we arrive) and are good friends, if they tell us they 'saw us at Disneyworld', we agree and pretend to remember them. We have to be graceful, walk with good posture, always polite, and apparently always talking. I have a set number of filler comments to use if I can't think of anything to say, including *girlish giggle*, "Oh my!" and the old stand-by, "how wonderful!" (This has become an embarrassment to me lately because it carries over to my regular life...I caught myself doing the "fill the silence with adorable laughter" thing with friends once. It's kind of awful.)"

Meet Mr Fifty Shades: EL James's husband speaks out - "Journalists ask if fans turn up on our doorstep asking silly questions. No, but journalists do. Do we have a dungeon? Or a Red Room of Pain? Maybe, and maybe there's a helicopter pad on the roof in case Christian Grey drops in for a spanking. Fifty Shades Of Grey is a fantasy – have they forgotten what that means? Do they chase JK Rowling down the street daring her to use her Avra Kedavra spell? Do they ask Hilary Mantel how many courtiers she's beheaded?... That cynical old hack Maguire would mutter that my novel is getting this coverage because I'm Mr EL James. Well, of course it is. But, like most novelists, I'm hardly going to refuse publicity. I'm not a masochist. And that's all I'm going to say about our sex life."Seems journalists have something in common with feminists and TV violence activists: the inability to distinguish fantasy from reality